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ISIS currently is estimated to have 14,000 to 18,000 combatants, according to the report, who are carrying out assassinations, suicides, crop burnings, and ambushes in Iraq and Syria - different from the large-scale attempts to seize territory since 2014, but a violent threat to civilians in both countries nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly, ISIS is again generating revenue by extorting civilians in both countries, kidnapping for ransom, and skimming money from rebuilding contracts. This decentralized method of income generation - unlike the detailed tax and revenue system ISIS employed during its caliphate - makes the income more difficult to track.

There, an ISIS branch, ISIS Khorasan, or ISIS K, is gaining ground and recruiting militants disillusioned with the Taliban's decision to operate as a political entity and not, primarily, a jihadi one. As Middle East expert Nicholas Heras of the Center for a New American Security previously told INSIDER, ISIS K is trying to make the case that Afghanistan is the perfect place to wage holy war on a multiplicity of fronts.

"ISIS K will likely succeed," Heras said.

So who wants to send their sons and daughters over for another shooting war?

Letting Iraq sort out their own matters allow ISIS to rise up in the first place. Problem is that people like ISIS are not satisfied with screwing up their own land, they want to screw it up for everyone else.